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Ebola Health Care Worker US Cases

https://www.dshs.state.tx.us/news/releases/20141012.aspx

Texas Patient Tests Positive for Ebola

Texas Patient Tests Positive for Ebola

A health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who provided care for the Ebola patient hospitalized there has tested positive for Ebola in a preliminary test at the state public health laboratory in Austin. Confirmatory testing will be conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

The health care worker reported a low grade fever Friday night and was isolated and referred for testing. The preliminary ​test result was received late Saturday.

"We knew a second case could be a reality, and we've been preparing for this possibility," said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services. "We are broadening our team in Dallas and working with extreme diligence to prevent further spread."

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World Bank ebola

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/08/ebola-crisis-world-bank-president-jim-kim-failure?CMP=twt_gu

Ebola crisis: global response has ‘failed miserably’, says World Bank chief

The president of the World Bank, Jim Kim, admitted on Wednesday that the international community had “failed miserably” in its response to the Ebola virus that has killed more than 3,800 people in west Africa and warned that the crisis now affecting Spain and the US was going to get much worse.

Amid signs yesterday that western governments were being forced to take the risks of a global pandemic more seriously, Kim said he wanted them to back a new $20bn (£12bn) global health fund that would be able to react instantly to emergencies.

“It’s late. It’s really late,” he said in an interview with the Guardian before the annual meeting of the Washington-based organisation this weekend.

“We should have done so many things. Healthcare systems should have been built. There should have been monitoring when the first cases were reported. There should have been an organised response.”

NYRS

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fracking water petro policy

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/10/7/report-ny-governorsaideseditedfrackingfindingsinfederalstudy.html

Report: Fracking study changed after intervention by NY State officials

A 2013 federal water study was edited to play down the negative effects of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” following a flurry of email exchanges between the authors and New York state officials, according to a report published this week by local political news website Capital New York.

The study, conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), had examined naturally occurring methane in water wells across the gas-rich Southern Tier, a group of counties located on New York’s border with Pennsylvania.

New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who commissioned the study in 2011, has long maintained that he would only approve fracking if science shows that it can be done safely.

But some environmental experts are accusing the Cuomo administration of meddling with the study in order to blunt the impact of a number of politically inconvenient findings — a move that would enable him to move forward with controversial energy policies.